Unfortunately, it would appear that for all of today’s work, only 1 picture was actually taken. It was an action-packed day with lots achieved.
It began by installing anchors on the new turnout to ensure it doesn’t move longitudinally when we shift it sideways.
We’ve replaced 21 timber sleepers in 2 Road and made a start replacing sleepers in 3 road. So far we’ve installed 7 steel sleepers, which we’ll interspace with timber, however that’ll be Thursday’s Job.
Thursday’s crew will work on completing 3 road, replacing 11 sleepers in 1 road and having a massive clean up of all the mess we’ve now so successfully made! Meeting at Maldon from 8am.
Another successful day today, with all the spikes and screws now driven.
Once that straight leg is in, it’s all just one big kit of bits.
We’re very happy with how it’s come up, as it’s now a third hand turnout, made from well used rail, so getting everything looking perfect can be quite a task, but it’s certainly looking very smart. The curve is slightly flat around the fishplates and a few of the welds. However, that’s neither here nor there in terms of it’s functionality.
Tuesday will see us finish off the finer details, spreader bars, heel bolts, etc… then we’ll switch over to doing a bit of resleepeeing in Maldon Yard, as it’s now due a good look at.
We probably won’t get this turnout in for a while yet, the main issue being it’s a few days worth of work and there’s little to no point in rushing it, so we’ll probably take a full week to do it, however, it’ll mean trains won’t be able to run around at all, so we’ll need to wait until we can schedule a train to run with a loco at each end.
We’ve made a very good start on the turnout building today.
All but one hole was drilled in the rails (a slight technical issue with the rail drill, where it’s doing absolutely everything correctly, except for starting…)
Once we’d got it all organised, with rails bolted up and flat sleeper plates under, the usual tricks for getting a straight line were used, and we’re very happy with how it turned out.
It was a very victorian day, with both extremes. We had scorching sun and two very impressive storms! Thankfully, they both occurred during break times. The heaviest was during lunch, however by 4pm, there was only a couple of small puddles remaining to indicate there had been any rain.
A keen eye will note that not every timber was lucky enough to get a sleeper plate, this was due to a limited supply of these plates on hand and the relatively limited use this turnout will see, on the curved legs anyhow. If by chance we get flooded with them in the future, we’ll fit them as we replace timber, however for now, we’ve worked on having 1 in 3 plated, which will be a massive improvement on what’s been here for the last 140 years.
Once we’d fastened up the 1 in 3 timbers along our straight edge, we gauged and started the fastenings along the other straight leg. Tomorrow will see all of these driven home.
And that was today’s finished product! We’re very proud of our effort, with a few little holds up from the weather and the rail drill, we’re very happy with what we achieved.
Tomorrow’s crew will hopefully get all the currently standing spikes driven, the last of the screws installed and the curved lead pulled to line and fastened down. Leaving nothing but a big drilling and spiking day on Tuesday to finish it off.
With the takeuchi back in action, we had a bit of tamping work still to go at Muckleford Creek Bridge. However we did need to top up the ballast a bit, so today was the first proper use of the hirail tipper.
It’s got a couple of tail gates, this one has has ballast shoots (we took one side deflector off to prevent it going over the bridge edge, we left the other side on, however that didn’t work so well).
It worked an absolute treat, with the three different shoots being controlled by air independently, making it very flexible.
Once we’ve got a ready supply of ballast again, we expect this to get a lot of use.
Once all of that excitement had passed, we headed up to Maldon, where a works train had dropped off a wagon full of turnout bits for us.
We then proceeded to do an approximate drop out of rails ready for Thursday’s crew to get into construction mode.
It’s amazing how quickly they go from looking like a pile of bits into a turnout.
Thursday’s gang will be meeting at Maldon from 8am.
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